Jane Katcher had a vision for a book celebrating her unique and quite personal collection of art so she came to Marquand Books, having seen our work for the American Folk Art Museum and heard good things about us from fellow art collectors.
Our first meeting involved all aspects of the team involved in the project, including the writers, editor and the photographer. Jane explained what she wanted, and per our request, had brought books she liked and disliked. We also brought many examples of similar publications, to show the variety of ways information can be handled.
She wanted a book that encapsulated her passion and interest for each object so that each one would shine yet be integrated into the text that wove her collection together in a historical, scholarly manner. Each object would be photographed especially for this book, with a variety of colored backgrounds, dramatic lighting in some cases, and specific unique details for the most interesting objects.
We reviewed the books she brought, discussing what she preferred in regards to typeface, size, the use of color for type, handling of image and text together, the grid and space of the page, weight and surface of the paper, handling of back matter images and text, etc. and I determined a starting point from her comments to all of the above.
We also discussed buying typeface(s) specifically for her book that reflected aspects of her favorite books and would invisibly support the art and scholarship yet convey the personal aspect of this collection.
I researched text and display fonts and found, for the way in which we were going to have lengthy text runs as well as small notes and dense back matter, the W.A. Dwiggins text face, Eldorado, was a perfect fit. The text face was solid not wispy, with a hint of old world, hand-tooled feel to it without being too charming.
I used the script face Dalliance sparingly to bring a personal touch to the book, as an allusion to the calligraphy present in some of Jane’s more personal pieces.